Dear Readers
by xPhineasx
Summary: Gellert/Albus Do not be fooled, dear reader, my desires for Albus are purely platonic, But do not think that because I had no sexual desire for him that Albus was anything less that dear to me. I loved him with my soul. GellertPOV. Tragic.


Hello everyone. Ren here. It's been a long time since I wrote anything, hasn't it? You see, I've been trying to keep up with college (Work for which, I SHOULD have been doing, rather than write this fic). But Alas, you see, I read the snippet of a Rowling interview today[Posted below] and I KNEW I had to write a fanfic. I've never written from Gellerts point of view, and so I pray I did well. Enjoy.

Dear Readers.

Albus/Gellert

JKR: [re: Grindelwald] I think he was a user and a narcissist and I think someone like that would use it, would use the infatuation. I don't think that he would reciprocate in that way, although he would be as dazzled by Dumbledore as Dumbledore was by him, because he would see in Dumbledore, 'My God, I never knew there was someone as brilliant as me, as talented as me, as powerful as me. Together, we are unstoppable!' So I think he would take anything from Dumbledore to have him on his side.

* * *

"Albus, Albus, Albus" I said softly, letting the vowels linger on my tongue. It was raining; a dreary cold British day. Summers in this wet little country were unpredictable, some days warm and buttery, others dreary and dull. Albus and I had been walking, talking, when the early morning, cool but dry, had shifted slowly into mid-morning, cold and wet. The two of us slipped under a Welsh Oak, ( A Sessile Oak, _**Quercus petraea**_,__a very pretty tree ) for refuge from the wet. It was poor cover, but far better than having to go home, to Albus's house with his unbearable siblings, or to my Aunt's with her insufferable presence. We would brave the damp and the chill for each others uncontested company.

While we walked, and then as we sat, we had talked of all manner of things; school and family, economics and muggles, politics and food. All the while I had watched him. Never had I known someone like this, like Albus. In all my years on the continent, in all my years of school, I had never known anyone as brilliant, as talented, as powerful, as witty and charming as he was. Three days since we first met and I was captivated by him. We had met at one of my Aunt's ridiculous summer parties, in our dress robes and white gloves with violins in the back ground, and we had chatted, and then talked, and then discussed, each level of conversation deeper and more revealing and more engaging that the last. I knew he was the one. Albus was the one I wanted as my partner, my confidant, my friend. I was dazzled by him, drawn to him like a moth to the flame. I knew he felt the same. We were destined to meet, destined to share our thoughts and dreams.

But I had fears. Albus was, above all else, a moral creature. For him there is right and there is wrong. How much of my plans, my ideas, my views could I divulge before I drove him away? I wanted to tell him everything, show him the bareness of my soul, and yet I needed to know he would not leave me if I did.

Do not be fooled, dear reader, my desires for Albus are purely platonic, intellectual, academic. I burned not to touch him or taste him, only to know him, to speak with him, to hear his mind and have him listen. The sensibilities of modern men are so unimaginative about the bonds we humans can share. As though to be so drawn to another means we must lust for them is ridiculous. But do not think that because I had no sexual desire for him that Albus was anything less that dear to me. I loved him with my soul, and I needed him.

I had to ensure that Albus wouldn't leave me, wouldn't hear my thoughts and think me cruel. It would break me to have him leave, to have him call me a monster as my peers (the fools) at school had. It was much to ask of him, to accept my radical ideas, and I knew there would be a price. I would have to give Albus something to prove to him I was no monster, to make him stay, to keep him loyal and at my side. Albus was all I ever dreamed of and more. He had ideas I had never thought of, views I had never considered, intellect unrivaled by any man, living or dead, save for me. There had to be a price to keep him.

And didn't I know what that was?

I glanced over at him. Albus was wiping his glasses on the edge of his robe, his auburn hair falling over half his face. His back was against the rough bark of the tree, his knees pulled up against his chest. I made a small tick in the back of my throat to make him look up. There it was again, that look. I could feel Albus's stares, the way his gaze lingered on the buttons of my shirt, the absent way in which his jaw would shift as though imagining the salty taste of skin. I knew, oh how I knew what my price would be.

"Albus, if I could give you one thing, do one thing for you, what would you ask of me?" I posed to him, tilting my head to the side and smiling. I knew he loved my smile, knew the way that it made his heart stir. The very first time I smiled at him I saw the flutter in his eyes, as though he was waking from a dream. Yes, dear reader, he inflated my ego, made me feel larger than life. He told me I was brilliant, and a mad man (But in a good way). He made me feel attractive and wonderful, and yet he made me doubt myself too. Albus drew out who I was in my heart of hearts, gave me confidence in my plans and also made me rethink them, refashion them. He made me believe and made me worry. It was that duality, that beautiful give and take he inspired in my heart that made me need him. Have you ever met someone like that, dear reader?

"I do not know Gellert." Albus said automatically, but I could sense the tension rise in his spine. "Why must you offer me anything? We are friends, equals. Friends." He repeated the last word as though to remind himself that friends was all we were.

I laughed and pulled myself up onto my feet, squatting now in front of him. "Come on Albus." I repeated, clicking my tongue against my teeth. "What do you want from me? I would do whatever you asked." He ran one hand through his hair, slowly.

Reader, please remember, I harbor no lust for this man. I never dreamed of him in my bed, in my arms, the taste of him in my mouth, my name on his lips. These were not my dreams. But understand that I needed Albus, needed him with me for my plans. I had great plans, plans to be the greatest wizard in the world, plans to lead my people out of the darkness of myth and fairy tale and into the sun, Muggles at our feet, begging me, their benevolent Lord, not to punish them for all their cruelties they had done upon my kind. Albus' shattered home, my broken childhood. I could not do this alone. I needed Albus. If the price for that was indulging my friend in his unnatural lust, his greedy desires for a love more firm that that of women, then I would indulge. Anything to keep him with me.

"I do not-" Albus began, but I put my hands on the tree on either side of his head, leaning towards him. I could feel Albus's breath against my face. Albus stopped, frozen in a moment of breath stealing time.

I would not simply kiss Albus, though I knew he would let me, that he wanted me to. I wanted to make him ask me to kiss him. I would take my dear friends affections, his love, his lust and fashion them into a jeweled leash and collar and so tether him to me. His love would be the bonds that made him stay. He had to understand that he wanted this and I had given it to him, that I would fulfill the ache in his heart. Once he understood this we would be bound together for ever. I would never loose him. I was desperate not to lose him.

"Albus, all you have to do is ask." I whispered. Albus looked down, unable to keep eye contact. I could see the struggle in his mind. Would he admit his want? Albus was a fool, a lovely, brilliant, inspired fool who believed in love, and so he would believe in me. "Just ask."

"I..." Albus stumbled, his breath ragged. "I want you to kiss me." He breathed and closed his eyes, as though it crushed his ribs to whisper those words, laying open his chest to the cruelties of the world. Albus looked as though I had punched the wind out of him. He seemed shocked, scared even, that he had said it aloud, that he had admitted to this retched lust. He was biting his lip, scared that at any moment I would stand up and walk away from him, mock him, ridicule him, revolt away from him for these feelings he held. (Had it happened before, or was I the first boy he had asked to kiss him? Surely he had kissed another boy before? The way he spoke about the dull little Elphias boy made me suspect it. But I doubt he ever had to ask anything from him. Asking makes us so much more vulnerable.) He feared I would reach into his open chest and tear out his beating heart and mock him for it.

He had no idea how precious he was to me. To find an equal, a mind as clever and sharp as my own, feeding the lust and love of another man was a small price to pay for such a find. Please reader, if you grow bored of my ramblings, my compliment upon compliment for this man, try to suffer it for me. I know I repeat myself. As I think of him, of my Albus, I travel through the winding trails of my mind and memory, and sometimes I stumble off the path of narrative. Such is the nature of my past. You can not understand what it is like to spend your life in the presence of inferior minds only to be confronted, at long last, with the one you know can understand you. You can not understand that euphoria.

"I want you to kiss me."

I kissed him, softly. It was not so different from kissing a woman I recall, save for the subtle hair on his chin and the angles of his face. Three precious seconds and I felt the fear and tension drain from Albus's face.

He threw his arms around my neck, deepening the kiss. I nearly laughed. He ran his fingers through my hair and held on tightly as though he was drowning, kissed me as though the act of kissing was all that stayed his heart from stopping.

We fell upon the ground together, twigs and leafs catching in our hair and our bodies pressed against one another. I do not know how long we kissed like that, the rain falling around us in the mid-morning chill. After a time, we stopped to breath. I lay flat on my back, Albus hovering over me, his hands on either side of my face. He stared down at me, his face flushed. He looked amazed, nervous, scared, as though he would wake up at any moment, as though he had walked into a dream. It was impossibly endearing.

"I told you, you only needed to ask." I said softly.

Albus let out a sharp intake of breath, like half a sob. He seemed so relieved. "Gellert" He whispered. He laid against my chest and I could hear him breathing.

"Albus, together, you and I will save the world." I said happily, smiling up at the leaves above us. "We will stand on top of all creation, Grindelwald and Dumbledore, together." I could see it in my mind, the two of us, always.

"Together." Albus repeated.

I really believed us, too.

- - - - - -

- - - - - -

Have you ever, dear reader, looked out your window in the dead of December and wished with all your heart for the sun to break through the clouds? Perhaps it's been a week, or two weeks, or, Merlin forbid, three weeks since the sun has shown itself, hiding behind the clouds, three weeks since you've felt the sun on your skin? You can remember so clearly how the ribbons of gold warm your skin, but the sun stubbornly stays behind a curtain of gray. They say that in the far reaches of the frozen north that whole months go by without the sun ever rising. What a hellish place, you and I both agree.

Have you ever, dear reader, suffered a drought? Perhaps a month or two or, pity be, a year since you felt rain upon your skin? No cool, clean, refreshing rain to wash the sky, to splash like little bells all across the world?

Surely you can remember the pain, the suffering, the straining wish for a drop of silver rain, a ray of golden sun. Imagine, dearest reader, that your heart is being crushed, like a great rock has been placed on your ribs, with want for nothing more than that; a sliver of light, a trickle of rain. Try to feel the pain in your chest, examine it, how it hurts, how it wiggles and struggles, straining against the dark and dry and try to imagine that there is nothing you can do, no matter how hard to try, to ease the pain.

I had been in my prison for ten years when Albus came to visit me for the first and last time. Ten long years, in one small stone cell without the sun on my face or the rain on my skin. Every day, all day, I would spend in the dark. There was one small window, high against my ceiling, but the buttresses on the castle wall above blocked out any direct sunlight that might have otherwise drifted into my world. I only left my tiny cell once a week, in heavy shackles, to be lead to the weak, dirty showers by impassive guards for fifteen minutes.

Never was I allowed into the yard, never I was allowed a room with a larger window. Ten years and I hadn't felt the warm of the sun or the cool of the rain even once. Remember that pain you conjured up before, dear reader? Think of it again, and imagine it for ten long years. It can drive a man mad.

Yes, there were days in my imprisonment when I would hear the distant rumble of thunder and I would plead, beg the guards to allow me to go outside, sixty seconds to stand with the rain on my skin and then they could kill me, blast me off the highest tower, so at least as I died I could feel the wind in my hair. I welcomed the thought. But these pleas for death would not come for many years yet, until my imprisonment had lasted at least a quarter of a century. When this story takes place I had given up hope of escape, begged instead for time in the sun, or rain, even if I had to remain in chains as I did before going back into the dark of the cells I myself have designed, but I did not yet beg for death.

Ten years in this dark place I helped to build, and Albus finally came to see me. I had been sitting in the corner of my cell, next to the rarely working toilet that, aside from my small hard bed, made up the only furniture I was allowed. I had been staring up at the small window against my ceiling, watching the little square of blue. Maybe if I was lucky, a bird would fly through my window of sight.

It was summer. (Like when we met, remember Albus? The heat of summer, in my Aunt's garden? You had on your best dress robes and white gloves, I in my late father's favorite robe and white gloves of my own. Violins swelling in the back ground, honey mead in crystal glasses. Do you remember, Albus? It was sunny that day.) Dear readers, I knew it was Albus the moment he walked into sight. He had aged in those ten years, sporting more gray in his hair, but it was still my Albus.

"Albus." I said softly, staring at him with no emotion on my face. "You got a new pair of glasses. Half-moon spectacles. They look good on you."

The pain on Albus's face was delicious. Dear reader, do not think ill of me, but I was bitter, I admit. It was Albus, Albus my confidant, my trusted friend, my one and only who understood the bareness of my soul, who locked me up in this terrible place, took my wand and then abandoned me. Yes, I was bitter. I had found him, alone and frustrated, trapped at home with his terrible, beastly siblings and saved him. I had given him what he wanted, fed his lust, filled his heart, kissed the creases around his eyelids. I had done that for him, and he had done this to me. You would be bitter too, my reader.

"Gellert, is that really you?" Albus said softly, standing just outside the bars of the door.

"Are you afraid to come inside my cell?" I laughed. A sob was building in my chest. (Albus, Albus, Albus. Oh My dear Albus, I missed you so much. You couldn't tell it was me, Albus? I know my hair had grayed, my face had sunk, my skin had paled, but it was still me Albus. How can you not know me Albus? )

A long pause. "Yes."

"Are you afraid of what I will do, or of what you will do, Albus? Do you not trust yourself with me? You never did have much self control when it came to me after all." I said as I stood up. Slowly, because my left knee ached, I walked over in front of the door. "Why are you here?" I asked him. It could have been for any number of things. Was he here to curse me, to kill me, to tell me my hearing had been accepted (Could be outside for at least a few minutes between the doors and the courtroom? It would be wonderful), or, dare I even hope, to set me free?

"I....had a question to ask." Albus said slowly.

I snarled. "You want to know if I killed your sister." I felt sick, angry and sick. Ten years I wallow in this horrible miserable place and when Albus finally has a courage to face me, he wishes to talk of his nasty little sister? (Albus, you should have come to make sure I was ok. You should have been there to see me. I wanted to see you so, so badly. Why did you only come here for information? Do you know how much it hurt, to have you there but not there for me?)

"Yes."

"Well I dont know who killed your sister." I said softly, bitterly. (Please, please Albus. Ask me how I'm doing, ask if the guards are treating me ok, ask how the food is, offer to bring me a mason jar full of rain water or cast a spell that imitates the sun. Please Albus? Smile at me, tell me things will be ok. Did you bring me any of those wonderful candies we ate? The little beans? I got one that tasted like watermelon and you got one that tasted like vomit and I kissed you so the tastes mixed together and it wasn't so bad. Remember?)

"You must know." Albus insists. His guilt is heavy in his voice. He fears he killed her, and he has come all this way to see if I can end that fear.

"I dont, and if I did I wouldn't tell you."

Albus and I shared a long look.

"Fine then." He says stiffly. "I'll be going." He began to turn around.

"Albus." My voice cracks as I say his name. My hands are pressed against the metal of my door. "Albus, please. Open the door." (Albus, my love. Please. Can't you see I'm dying in here? I'm loosing my mind in here. Albus. Would you really leave me in here again? I was laughing first time they locked this door and you walked away, but I'm not laughing now.)

"What?" Albus looks at me as though I've lost my mind. (I have, dear Albus. I have)

"Open the door Albus." I repeated. "I know the way out. Just open the door. I'll disappear forever. To India or Yugoslavia, South America, anywhere. You'll never have to see me again, or you can come with me if you like. Please, Albus. No sun, no rain, horrible food. I was a fool to build this place. Please. Open the door."

"I can't do that." He said softly. "Gellert, you hurt so many people. You're a monster." (Albus, dont call me that. I'm not a monster. I thought you understood.)

"Dont be a fool Albus!" I yelled at him, slamming a fist into the door. "Damn you Albus! Open this door!"

"I must go Gellert." Albus said softly, looking away "Elphias is wait-."

"DONT SAY HIS NAME!" I yelled. "Dont you say that pathetic man's name! Open the door Albus! I demand you open this door!" (Albus, please. I can't bear to hear you say his name. To think that after you left me you went to him, told him your secrets, your dreams and not me. I can't understand Albus. I've only ever had you.) I hit the door again. (Did you do to him what I did to you Albus? Did you kiss him, and hold him and bind him to you so that when all else was lost you could go to him? But what about me? You were supposed to be there for me.)

"Good bye Gellert." Albus said, his head bowed.

"I never loved you." I hissed. Tears had sprung up in the corners of my eyes. This couldn't be happening. Albus couldn't just walk away. "I never loved you Albus." (Albus, I'm sorry.) "I knew how you felt, knew your lust, your affection. I used it Albus. I made you think I loved you so you wouldn't leave. But it didn't work, did it? You traitor." I was laughing. Laughing with tears running through the dirt on my face. (I didn't mean it Albus). "Traitor." I repeated.

Albus looked up, his eyes wide. The pain was as clear as day. It was like watching all the lights on a Christmas tree flicker out, the wind howling with snow outside, the fire dead in the hearth. He had still believed, until that moment, that I loved him as he loved me. That I had lusted for him. That we were soul mates. (We were Albus. But I never had those physical desires. If you had stayed I would have tried to explain. Why did I hurt you, Albus? What have I done?)

"You were so easy." I laughed. "A kiss here, a kiss there. But I was lying. I never loved you the way you loved me." (Why couldn't I stop talking? Why couldn't I stop saying those terrible things?)

Albus walked away without another word and I slid to the floor, laughs melting into sobs. (Albus, please come back.) "Albus." I cried, my head in my hands. "My Albus."

- - - - - - -

- - - - - - -

Dear reader, this is the last you'll hear from me. I can feel the darkness moving closer, and I'm not afraid. You see, dearest reader, darkness has come back into the world. The guards tell me Lord Voldemort (A ridiculous name, if you ask me) has revealed himself to the ministry. He is attacking England again. He will come here and demand to know what I know of the Elder wand. But I will not tell him, and I am not afraid. You may think, my readers, that I should be worried for Albus. But alas....no.

You see, Albus is dead.

It's been eight months since I heard the guards talking, whispering back and forth. They didn't want to tell me the news at first, worried it would send me into a rage. Finally they slipped me an English paper. There, in the cruel black and white, was Albus's face. That sneaky little rat Elphias Doge (Who I had never met in person but whom I loathed) had written about Albus. (I noticed I was suspiciously absent from the account. ) It was a eulogy. Albus was dead. He had been blasted off the highest tower, and at least, I consoled myself, he had felt the wind in his hair as he fell. I didn't cry then. I waited, until the dead of night with a thunderstorm tearing over head, to sob, the paper crumbled in my hands.

Albus. Albus my confidant, my soul mate, my one true friend, the one who understood me, my Albus. My Albus. It was like a hold had been opened in my chest and all my tragedy was pouring out onto the stone floor. He was gone. I would never see him again. The last of my hope had faded. Gone, gone, gone. Albus, Albus, Albus.

I had wanted to see him again. I wanted to tell him I was sorry. I wanted to mean it. I wanted to tell him my dreams. Not dreams for the future for I had none of those, but dreams of the past. In my dreams his sister comes from me, Ariana. She comes to me and she tells me that I killed her. I know I did. I've always known. After all, who else but I could have done it? Albus aimed to stun, Aberforth to maim, but I was the only one trying to kill. Yes, I was trying to kill the boy, but that doesn't make the deed any better.

(Albus we have to go, I told him, dear readers. Albus, they will blame me for her death, we have to leave. Come with me, come with me Albus. But he sunk to the floor and watched his brother try to revive a corpse. Albus Please. 'Elphias' He whispered. 'Oh why has this happened, Elphias' He had given up on me right then and there. Given up on us. When things got hard it was not me he went to because it was my fault, or his fault for loving me. Elphias was safer. Elphias never would have let the girl die. He had wished Elphias was there, with him, and not me. He loved me more than he would ever over Elphias, but I had hurt him more than Elphas ever could as well. Damn, damn that wicked Elphias. Albus, my Albus.)

Ariana. I never called her by her name. She was always the sister, the girl, he insufferable sibling, never Ariana. But she comes to me, fragile and tragic, telling me I killed her and I'm sorry. I am sorry.

And then the Muggle children come. A pair of them, the first muggles I ever killed. I was a boy when I did it. The reasons are inconsequential. They do not excuse me. They had killed a puppy I had found, drowned it in the lake. It broke me. I broke them. They were more fragile. They come to me, their eyes misty, and they call me a murderer. I am a murderer. They were just stupid kids. I killed them. I am sorry.

I wanted to tell Albus I was sorry.

Know this readers, when we were boys I never lusted for Albus, but if he were here now, I would kiss him like he used to kiss me. I would twine my fingers in his hair and kiss him because I AM drowning, because his touch would be the only thing to keep my heart beating, because his love is all that could save me. But he is gone, and I will die.

I have never been a religious man, and so I do not know what will happen to me when the darkness comes. But I have been a monster, just as the fools always said, and Albus, above all else, has always been a moral creature. With him there was right an there was wrong. I have been wrong.

Dear readers, do not weep for me.

Voldemort will come, looking for the Elder Wand. I will lie to him, I will not let him go to Albus's tomb. I will mock him, and I will call him a fool. For I may be a monster, but I am no longer fearful of death. He will strike me down, and then I will go to seek the Great Perhaps.

Outside my tiny window there is a Golden sky. When I think back on Albus all I can think of is sorrow at first sight. How sad our lives were, how I ruined us both.

I had such big dreams, such grand dreams. I found my one and my only, the only one who could ever know the bareness of my soul and I made plans for us. We would save the magical world from the terrible, nasty muggles that polluted it and kept us hidden in the dark. All for the Glorious Greater Good. I failed, and I ruined so much. My last hope is that in my death, Voldemort will never find the Elder Wand, and that Albus knows that I was sorry.

And so the darkness comes.

- - - - - - -

There is a golden boy with an elfish grin, sitting in a field of warm grass. "Where am I?" He asks, confused. The sun is high and warm in the sky, but in the distance there is the soft rumble of what may be storm clouds coming.

"Good question." The boy looks over. There is another boy in the grass, slightly taller and thinner than the first, with long red hair and a kind gaze. "I honestly dont know."

"I think...this is the meadow near the house where I grew up." The first boy says, staring at the creek at the edge of the clearing. There are birds in the near by trees, and crickets in the grass. He turns to look at the red haired boy. "Oh Albus. I am sorry. It was me. I'm so sorry."

Albus gives a small nod. "Gellert, my darling Gellert. I forgive you."

Gellert smiles his beautiful, whimsical, magical, hopeful smile and lays back in the grass, feeling the sun on his skin and closes his eyes. Albus kisses him softly on the forehead and lays beside him. And so, they sleep, their hands twined together in the warm grass.

* * *

Do not weep for them, dear readers. They found each other in the end.


End file.
